Over 10.5 billion AI bots were seen by APAC businesses in just two months, according to Akamai research. This highlights the increasing risks associated with rapid AI adoption.
APAC ranks second globally for automated traffic driven by AI bot activity, global activities skyrocket by 300% in one year
Singapore, November 5, 2025 — The cybersecurity and cloud computing firm Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), which powers and safeguards businesses online, today released a new State of the Internet (SOTI) report that shows a startling increase in automated traffic, mostly from AI-powered bots that target websites in all sectors.
The Digital Fraud and Abuse Report 2025, which was produced during a two-month period from July 1, 2025, to August 31, 2025, states that AI bots are now responsible for a fast growing portion of online traffic, with activity increasing by 300% in the previous 12 months. The Asia-Pacific (APAC) area was the second most affected market after North America, accounting for approximately one fifth (19.5%) of all bot operations worldwide.
These bots cause billions of queries, which drastically skews analytics and digital operations. Over 10.5 billion AI bot triggers—a technique for identifying AI bot requests—were recorded in APAC alone during the reporting period, with China, Japan, Singapore, and India leading the way. The difficulties in differentiating between bot traffic generated by users with good intentions and bot traffic generated by users with bad intentions that could result in digital fraud and abuse were exacerbated by this spike.
This rise highlights how AI bots are actively challenging conventional web-based business models and is the result of widespread content scraping of web data. Publishers and other content-driven companies are witnessing distorted analytics and declining ad revenues as a result of bots taking value without providing anything in return as bot traffic increases. With over 6 billion AI bot triggers recorded overall, the digital media and commerce sectors in APAC are taking the brunt of this trend, indicating that AI models are progressively stealing data from rapidly expanding online economies.
The report also reveals that the proliferation of AI-enabled tools has made it easier than ever for new malicious actors and seasoned threat professionals to use AI-generated fake documents and images to commit identity fraud, launch phishing campaigns, conduct social engineering, and launch impersonation attacks. APAC was the region with the highest level of meticulousness, with 98.6% of AI Bot traffic being actively watched rather than completely banned.
Key APAC-related findings from the report include:
- APAC accounted for 20.2% of global AI bot activity, making it the second-most active region worldwide after North America.
- India, Japan, and China ranked among the top global targets for AI bots, recording 3.2 billion, 2.8 billion, and 1.7 billion triggers respectively. Singapore ranked fourth among APAC, accounting for 899 million AI bot triggers.
- The commerce sector (47%) is the primary target of AI bot activity in APAC, with retail surpassing hotel and travel, accounting for nearly three-quarters (73%) of all commerce-related triggers.
- Training bots made up 73.7% of AI bot activity in APAC, reflective of rapid adoption of AI-powered tools and chat interfaces.
- APAC organizations were the most cautious globally, choosing to monitor (98.6%) AI bot traffic rather than blocking or delaying (1.4%) it – well above North America (91.1%) – reflecting a “watch and learn” stance as companies evaluate emerging AI risks.
Both beneficial and detrimental bots are putting pressure on internet firms worldwide. Malicious bots like FraudGPT, WormGPT, ad fraud bots, and return fraud bots are increasing expenses, deteriorating site performance, and distorting important metrics, even if certain bots offer features like accessibility and search engine indexing. Businesses must create frameworks for safe AI adoption, risk management, and resilience as AI-driven bots become a fundamental component of many industries. They must also make sure that operations and digital assets are safeguarded as the threat landscape changes.
